King’s Library

The King's Library was a royal collection of books
created by King George III and donated to the nation. A
gallery, named after the collection, was built at the British
Museum in 1827 to house them. It is the oldest room in the Museum
and now home tothe permanent exhibition
Enlightenment: Discovering the world in the eighteenth
century.

The original collection and gallery

The King's Library, a collection of over 60,000 books, was
formed by King George III (1760–1820) and given to the
nation in 1823 by his son King George IV.

When the library was donated there was not enough space to house
it in the original British Museum building. This led to the
construction of today’s quadrangle building, designed by the
architect Sir Robert Smirke (1781–1867).

The room for the King’s Library was the first wing of the new
building to be constructed (1823–1827). It was on a
grand scale: 91m (300 feet) long, 12m (41 feet) high and 9m (30
feet) wide, with a central section 18m (58 feet) wide. Its great
size called for the pioneering use of cast iron beams to support
the ceiling.

Originally, it was not intended to be a public room. There were
two entrances, one at either end of the room, and 12 reading desks
to be used by the library assistants.

The central section of the room was meant to consist of 12
columns made from Aberdeen granite. The first four were bought, and
are still in place, but the cost of polishing them was so expensive
that no more were purchased.

In 1997 the books were transferred to their new home in the
King’s Library Tower in the new British Library building at St
Pancras, London. The books currently occupying the cases in the
King’s Library are on long term loan from the House of Commons
library.

Restoring the King’s Library gallery

Careful restoration work between 2000 and 2003 revived the
original room to its previous glory of the 1820s, in time to
celebrate the British Museum’s 250th anniversary.

Repairs to the oak and mahogany floor and classical
architectural features have refreshed the space. Hundreds of square
metres of plaster were cleaned to restore the yellow and gold
ornamentation and the re-gilded balcony.

Two hundred kilometres of wiring (twice round the M25 motorway)
enabled a subtle lighting system to be installed, which aims to
complement the newly-restored colour scheme.

The result was that two centuries of use and London grime were
washed away and a major permanent exhibition, using thousands of
objects from the Museum collection to show how people understood
their world in the Age of Enlightenment, was created.

In 2004, the King’s Library, now known as the Enlightenment
Gallery, won the Crown Estate Conservation Award from the Royal
Institute of British Architects. The judges said, “The
restoration of the room, and its conversion to an exhibition about
the history of the Enlightenment and of the early collections of
the Museum itself, have revealed it in its full glory as one of the
finest rooms in London.”